


remarkably cold

by 23notecanon (reincarnivore)



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, old man with broom, what will he do
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:28:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28213191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reincarnivore/pseuds/23notecanon
Summary: theres a dusk in the gardenan old man stands in the rain. what happens next night shock you
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

The morning is broken by the softest of rainfalls, the shining rays of gold from Twilight Town’s infinite dawn breaking from between sparse cloud cover as it dwindles away the hours. The foliage surrounding the mansion flourishes in the moisture, trees shaking leaves and ridding them of droplets in the gentle breeze, the grass beneath them perking with life. Small animals peek out from their slumber to sniff at the humid air curiously, but await the afternoon sunlight to get their days fully started. It is a morning spent well enjoying it for the way it is, not perfect, but living, cold and wet, bright and breathing.

DiZ stands at his ‘bedroom’ window, a dirty mattress on small haphazard bed frame surrounded by the broken remnants of this place- he could not even call it ‘his’, really, the mansion long since unoccupied by whomever owned it first, him a mere vagrant settler. Eyes flick to a trail of water dripping past his vision, blurring grey and dirty the scene outside beyond what the rain was already marring it. Days are quiet but routine, and between where Namine comes to him timidly to speak of often poor news, he stands and stares out his windows vacantly. Sleep hardly comes, though he rarely feels tired for it, but the moments he remains awake are nothing more than deposits of empty time between encouraging the unsettling rage in his heart to contain itself. He cannot tell if watching the rain is helping or hindering his mood, but he feels no or less empty than he normally does, at least. Empty, he repeats to himself, and the thought of that emptiness lingers until the memory of empty things sets that fire once again in his gut, filling him with hatred. No, not empty, it seems, and with a shake of his head, he grumbles towards the doorway. He cannot think of anything in particular he had to do today, but in the interest of remaining sane, DiZ is sure he can find  _ something _ to occupy himself.

Namine spots him out the door of her own room, a shining bright white framing her equally pale self like an unsettling halo. Habitually, she offers him the shiest of waves, but sees the scowl on his face and shrinks back into her immaculate study. He’s bisected by the thought he might regret being so harsh, so unreasonably aggravating to be around, but remembers that she is a sorely empty thing too, and why waste his breath being gentle. If she has nothing good to tell him, then he won’t waste his time to listen.

Waste your time, Ansem? What time do you have to waste? DiZ shakes out his head when his mind continues to aggravate him with its nonsense. He is aware of his limitless time- but limited time, as well. A year to pull this all through, but in no way can he interject beyond what he has already done, already started. 

Before he realizes where he’s walked, DiZ stands at the back garden windows, having angrily traipsed down the stairs after giving Namine his usual morning guff. He might normally stare out this window, too, but his senses are ripped back to reality when a while, ethereal form captures his attention. It shifts between his poorly kept flowers, a singular nobody, eyeballing each wilting bud before moving onto the next.

Riku, unfortunately, is  _ not _ at his entire beck and call like Namine, and while he appears periodically to stare at his sleeping, nearly forgotten friend, he is nowhere near here this particular day. This thought has woefully never really occurred to DiZ, as the years he’s occupied this mansion alone, none have appeared to harass him. If a nobody is in his garden now, it spells disaster for him and anyone who dwells within these walls. As much as he would tell himself he has the option of shutting himself and Namine into silence for the wriggling thing to leave as it will, or to sink into the basement and reappear with a mechanical solution, that rage is still burning a hole through his chest. It’s only a single dusk. So why not get cocky.

It occurs to him only subconsciously that he’s never held a weapon before, and while Ansem knew some magic, DiZ struggled to contain his thoughts long enough to use it like he once had. This apparently has no bearing on his actions, however, and the dusk is completely, still so unassumingly, inspecting dying flowers when the old man comes at it from behind with a broom clutched white knuckled in his hands.

He had seen dusks in passing, mostly by scans and images he had taken, researching them endlessly when he had first arrived out of the Nothing. Dusks, nearly the weakest of them all, completely empty, devoid of thought or emotion. DiZ has the broom handle held high over his head to strike this abhorrent beast from its unexistence when from behind the lip of its hood, wide chompy teeth spread and idly nip the brightest of the flower buds to chomp down on it heartily. His hand is momentarily stayed in the stupor of the thought that this empty thing seemed to have thoughts enough to eat flowers.

His mouth clicks dryly when it opens to speak without thinking, his broom weapon slowly lowering. “What are you doing,” he rasps in irritation, still very ready to defend himself, but while the dusk whips its head back, it’s merely startled, and stares up at him blindly from beyond the hood. Why is he asking it anything- a dusk doesn’t think, it cannot speak, it is a puppet-

~oh, you know the saying….~

… it’s like a thought that rattles in his skull, unspoken words, but DiZ is more than familiar with the voices that bounce around in his mind, so he knows that was not him. The dusk is speaking. “No, I… I do not, ‘know the saying’.”

-i came to stop, and… eat, the roses… i am remembering, to stop and… eat, the roses.- There are pauses where it stops, musing a forgotten thought with a bruxing of its teeth.

His broom is fully down now, completely unguarding himself. A thought, it is having. A memory. It remembers something about itself. “... No, you are supposed to stop and  _ smell _ the roses… And those are not roses,” DiZ barks. “A rose would never hope to grow here,” he rumbles at the end, looking to the ruined states of his garden. For a short while he’d gone through a phase of attempting to mend its ruined state, but left it to wither for the sake of other things, not to mention the tedious nature of caring for a garden. It’s really a reflection of himself, he knows, the way he puts no effort into repairing the mansion he lives in, or the grounds around it. He can say it is to pretend they are unlived here, but no one can see into the garden from the outside, or can see the shattered rooms from the boarded, curtained windows. 

~ah,~ it almost sounds  _ dejected,  _ an obscene thought DiZ thinks, ~i would not know. i cannot smell.~

“...And why not?”

Loosely, its wriggling limbs point to its starkly black and vacant face. Just a big, sharp maw of teeth. ~i have no nose,~ it replies so matter-of-factly.

Slowly, DiZ raises a hand to press to his face. He can hardly stifle the pained laugh bubbling through his hatred. “So you do not. Either way, smelling or eating, these are both not roses and  _ mine _ . I will have you not eating them.”

~is this why you threaten?~ Oh, good, apparently it was not so stupid it hadn’t noticed him threatening it with the broom still clutched in his hand. 

“Yes. Now leave. Find a rose bush on another world to eat- there are many.”

~i will, then. fairwell, stranger.~ It did not sound offended by his anger, and with no effort, disappears into the Nothing in a flurry of thorns. The rain had not stopped, but was sparse enough he was hardly damp, but tests his luck by standing there vacantly in his dead garden for longer than he comprehends the time to pass. He feels eyes on his back and slowly turns to look up at the upper level windows, and Namine is looking down at him with a curious look- and then a sudden frown when his glaring eyes meet her softened expression. She disappears back behind the curtains, and he stands there a while longer getting wet. It’s almost nice, but.

The rest of his night is filled with existential dread. Stranger, it called him, so there would be nothing to report to having seen him here in this mansion, it did not recognize or even know DiZ as he once was. But alternatively, that voice inside him beckons, It did not seem like that one heralded to Xehanort at all.

Of course it did. They all do. They are all puppets of Xehanort, they have no thoughts or purpose beyond what he commands they do.

Stop and eat the roses, he scowls to himself, a budding flower pricked between his fingers, but he sets the cut stem into a dirty vase with an inch of fresh rain water on a probably precarious outcrop of his computer. It does kind of smell nice, and suppose if one did not have a nose, tasting a flower may be the only way to get any resemblance of what smell used to be. DiZ had never noticed the way the flowers smelled, either, even when he was making a lackluster attempt at maintaining the garden. It hadn’t mattered what the smell had been. But now, he keeps bringing it to his covered nose, and sniffing.

It didn’t feel so empty and angry anymore. But he does feel remarkably cold.


	2. Chapter 2

The routine settles itself as the weeks go by, and while DiZ has an array of things he will be doing in a day, Namine’s mornings always begin with his familiar scowling. So, when she ‘awakens’, or rather when she comes out of bed since she hardly sleeps, she stretches arms high above her head a step out of her bedroom door and opens her eyes to-,,, Nothing? DiZ is not scowling from his door. Leaning back into her roo, she peers in towards her clock; 8:45AM. A little later than usual, so perhaps she had missed him heading downstairs- but she has risen later than this and still had him scowling at his door. It’s almost as if he stayed and waited for her to appear, but never came to wake her. He was acting strange yesterday too, standing outside in the rain, so maybe they've been around each other long enough he was simply diverging from the usual out of boredom or otherwise. Namine finds herself staring at his closed door for a long while, waiting for him to poke his head out- but it never comes, ten minutes later, half an hour, and hour later. He is most certainly already downstairs, so with a sigh she traipses down the long staircase and towards the secret rooms beneath.

No part of her expects for the basement to be empty as well. Not even turned on, the computer slumbers quietly, still humming along with its sleeping practices but untouched for the day. She spots a wilting flower on his desk, plucked and placed in a half filled vase. Though she thinks that's risky to bring water so close to his computer, she doesn’t dare touch it- but does decide to lean in and sniff. Despite how it looks, it smells awfully nice, so maybe that’s why he was standing out there for so long yesterday. Maybe he went outside again? It wasn’t raining today, but that probably makes it even nicer. Namine has no thoughts of outside herself, but spares a few now with the lingering smell of flowers in her brain. If DiZ is allowing himself to go outside, why not her? She doesn’t forget the fact they’re hiding, but she hadn’t seen anything else outside yesterday except the sparsely blooming flowers.

Upstairs again however, she looks out the window to a beautiful, radiant and sunny morning with no old men standing outside in the sun. A frown crosses her face to that empty garden. She even takes a few nervous steps outside to make sure she isn't missing him behind a bush or a statue, but no, he is not here. Did he… did he wake up? there's a pang of unknown tension in her chest to that thought, knowing well that he is on the older side of thing, and not being entirely sure how old someone lives. He didn’t seem like he was anywhere about to drop dead, but they don’t always do, and rushedly skitters back up the stairs to the foot of his doorway. And stands there. And listens... But the door is solid wood, even when she presses her ear to it, it just sounds like her own breathing at the back of her ears. Ever so slowly, she twists the door handle open, peeking her eyes into the darkened room.

The bright sunlight is barely filtering through ragged curtains, just enough she can see after a moment of her eyes adjusting. She expected that his room was in some level of disarray, but wholly underestimated how much. There’s a bedframe jammed in the corner, if you could call it that, and on top there is a lump of his shape, laid flat beneath dirty blankets. She’s never seen his face before, so it’s a surprise when he’s uncovered, but what makes it worse is the sheen of sweat across his face. At least his chest is moving, he’s breathing, still alive, but he’s obviously straining from something, each breath rasping pained past a constrained throat. Oh no. Is he…. Is he sick? From standing in the rain yesterday- he’d soaked himself to the bone, though Namine could not reprimand him for it, not to mention he would never take her advice. Seeing him now, however, he is most certainly sick, and Namine was alone.

As slowly as she had entered, she closes the door again, eyes darting to the ceiling in thought. He keeps the pantry full enough that the both of them and the occasional Riku is fed and fed well, but there’s nothing in particular that would come to her as something to give someone who was sick. There’s no bank of memories for her to peruse for an answer, only things she has read, and those few books she has gone through tell her ‘soup’ and ‘medicine’. She can make soup, she’s sure there’s a can in there somewhere, but medicine? They do not even keep potions or elixirs, if they showed up, Riku tended to slip them away. She has a small amount of money from what Riku gives her for ‘emergencies’, but has no idea if it’s a small or large enough amount to obtain whatever ‘medicine’ she might need to keep DiZ alive. The death of him- despite the way he imprisons and torments her with his lackluster mood on a daily basis, without him, she has nothing. Well, she has Riku, but he is more often in his own life, sparing little for them than what they offer to Sora. And Sora- no, without DiZ, she can hardly think to finish her work. What if it goes wrong? It’s already somewhat going wrong, as her work goes so slowly these days with all the interference. One more time- she creaks the door open to peer at him from across the room, but still he does not budge. So very quietly, “DiZ?” … Nothing, not even a catch of his breath. If he won’t be roused easily, she doesn’t want to rise him at all and have him waste his strength barking at her caution, even if he requires it. Now, If she returns medicine and soup already made… He couldn’t possibly turn it down. Ok, he COULD possibly turn it down, but then he’ll rightly deserve all the dying he’ll be doing afterwards. Despite his temper. DiZ has never struck her or anything around her down. She wouldn't give him much credit for that, but enough credit that she’s sighing and walking down the stairs again, stopping at the massive doors to the front of the mansion. She’s never been outside of these doors. It takes her a long time fo wringing her fingers and thinking about what she’ll do, but stalwarty pulls them open with a heft of their weight. It’s not as if she’s forgotten they’re technically  _ hiding _ here, and her becoming outside is quite the risk, but can’t think of else what to do.

It doesn't stop her from being nervous the entire way there. However, it’s bright and sunny out, the birds delightfully singing all around her, empowered by yesterday's rain fueling the forest surrounding them. It doesn’t even turn any heads when she sneaks past the crack in the wall, looking around at the curious little town Riku has only told her about. It’s not exactly busy this morning, but there’s enough people around she’s shrinking beneath herself She barely manages to read the signs around her until she’s sure she has found a shopkeep.

“.. Well, you’re a new face!” The woman behind the counter speaks after a moment of Namine silently staring up at her. It even takes her a moment to reply, her mouth opening and closing a few times as she parses her thoughts. 

“Excuse me, but uh.. I have a… friend,” she goes with ‘friend’, because there is no easy explanation for what DiZ is to her, and it made understanding why she wanted to help him easier, “and I think he’s pretty sick. But I’m not sure what to get him.”

"A friend?” The woman repeats, raising an eyebrow at the stranger girl. “Well, what kind of sick?”

“He didn’t get out of bed this morning. And he was coughing a bit,” she nods along with her speech, frowning as her eyes drift to the shopkeeper’s hands instead of her face.

So she doesn’t see the shopkeep frown back down to her. “Well, that  _ might  _ be serious. I’m not sure what much I can give you, honey, but why don’t we start with this,” the woman takes a few steps back from her counter, rummaging around her his stock before turning back around and offering a bottle of bright green liquid to her. “Is your friend your age?”

Biting her lip, she replies, “Oh, no, he is..  _ much _ much older than me.”

“Oh, well keep an eye on that cough, alright? Give him some of this,” she puts the bottle in a large paper bag for her, and then leans back around for a few more packets of things as well, “and if he gets any worse, come back here and we’ll find you a doctor to talk to.”

“O-oh, alright,” she nods nervously, pulling out her bag of money, but is interrupted by a form slinking up to her side. There’s a momentary startle to being accosted, but the scent of him catches her, and she relaxes to give Riku a discerning look. “Hey! Don’t scare me!”

“Sorry, but I’m surprised to see you outside,” he ‘looks’ up at the shopkeeper, but she recognizes the blindfolded, black coated boy easily. She's sold him many a potion before. 

“Oh, are you two friends? I’d never seen her around, but I guess I don’t see you around often either.”

“Yeah, sorry. Is there something the matter? Did DiZ actually send you out to get him something?” that would be  _ insane _ , he thinks, since if anything happened to her, their plan would explode into nothing. 

“Uhmm… “ Namine’s gaze falls to her feet, shuffling her toes around in the ground, since she also knows well she should not be out of the mansion, let alone this far into Twilight Town alone.

“She told me her friend was sick, actually- I was just getting her potion and a few good herbals teas that might set him right again.” When the woman speaks on her part, Namine looks up gratefully. She offers the bag of supplies again, and Namine tries to pull out her money pouch- but the woman refuses. “First one’s on the house, honey.”

“Mine wasn’t free,” Riku mumbles to himself, but laughs as he reaches to grab it.

“Well, you didn’t look like you needed it to be free,” she chuckles back to him, watching as he pulls his blindfold back just a bit to peek at what’s inside. He’s peered into bags before- mostly at the beginning of meeting him because he must've not entirely trusted she was giving him what she said she was. 

“Thank you, ma’am,” Namine replies sheepishly as Riku takes her wares for her, not wanting to shrug off the help of either of them.

“See you around! And do come back if your friend is still feelin bad in a few days, ok?>” the shopkeeper repeats herself, offering them both a soft but concerned look as they head back towards the mansion.

Once they’re out of earshot and into the forest, Riku sighs, leaning down discerningly. “Namine, why did you leave the mansion by yourself?

“ told you,” she immediately defends herself, pushing back his face with a palm, “DiZ is sick. He didn’t wake up his morning, even when I called. He was coughing and sweaty- yesterday morning he stood out in the garden in the rain for hours, I couldn’t get him to come inside.”

Again, Riku sighs as he leans away from her hands, grumbling to himself under his breath. With a shake of his head, though, “If you get caught out there by the Organization, it’s all over for us. I know you wanted to help, but I really wish you would’ve stayed inside.”

“I-, I didn’t know you were coming, or maybe I would’ve waited… I can’t just let him, you know… Die, or something.”

"He’s probably not that sick,” Riku chuffs, reaching to the door before Namine skitters forwards to get it for him. He could easily open the door  _ and _ hold their bag of supplies, but appreciates the gesture. “Even he is an old man, and standing out in the rain probably just gave him a cold. Nothing serious, he’ll just sleep for a few days and then be back to harass us both in no time.”

“But then you think he would wake up when I called…” Or, as they stand in the main room now, and there continues to be no sight of him. If he had awoken in the meantime and found her gone, it would have been  _ him _ finding her in the town, and he wouldn’t have been a fraction as kind as Riku was about it, she is sure. 

"He’s old and tired. Maybe he was ignoring you. He’ll regret it later when he finds out you went outside by yourself.”

“... I mean, I wasn’t exactly going to tell him,” they head towards the kitchen, him rifling through their bag for its innards while she heads to the cupboard for soup.

“How were you planning to explain how you got all this, huh?”

She stifles a laugh while crawling up onto the counter to reach, “I was going to say you did it.”

“You didn’t even know I was here.”

“But he also wouldn’t know that you hadn't shown up! And now you are here, so I can  _ definitely  _ blame you,” she teases, slipping back down and offering him a sassy waggle of her finger that he cannot see.

"I mean, I  _ could _ tell him…” but she makes the saddest little noise at that, and he laughs low under his breath. “I won’t tell him. But you have to promise me you won't do it again, ok? I know you were worried, and it’s ok to worry- but you  _ cannot _ get yourself in trouble over him. We can do this without him- we can't do this without you.”

There’s a long silence to that while Riku pulls out an old kettle, filling it with water and setting it on the stove. The shopkeep had given them some nice soothing teas, and a powder he can only assume is medicine to pour in as well. Namine eventually breaks the silence with a soft, “We can do this without him?”

"I mean… maybe,” Riku shrugs, “I’ve seen how his computers work and he’s shown me a lot of how everything functions. I think he knows he’s expendable, really.” Before the kettle can squeal, Riku hovers his hand over it to feel the steam. He doesn’t want it blisteringly hot- it’s better for the herbal tea. A frown crosses his face when he remembers it was DiZ who told him that.

“I don’t know if I agree with that… I think we would be more lost than you’re implying if he was gone,” Namine mumbles, shuffling up beside him with a pot full of soup she had spilled into it earlier. He swaps the two burners while the first one was still hot rather than use two, they can bring DiZ up his tea before offering food, incase Riku gets up there and Namine hadn’t been blowing things out of proportion.

“I’m not saying we wouldn’t be a little lost,- but we wouldn’t be hopeless. Without you, though, we would have nothing.” His tone becomes sharply dark, his head turning to face her where his eyes remained hidden, but his gaze still bores into her head. “Sora would fall apart, alone in the basement, and we would just have to sit back and watch.” His ‘eyes’ return to the kettle as he pours it, the tip of his finger at the lip of a hefty mug to feel when the hot liquid has it filled, unconcerned by the burning. The teabag bobs gently inside, a pale red bleeding into the water from the fruits inside.

“I’m sorry,” she speaks again quietly, her feet shuffling, but Riku interrupts with another quiet laugh.

“It’s ok, really. You didn’t get caught, so its fine. I’m not going to get mad at you something that didn’t even happen. At least, no more mad than this. Unlike someone else around here,” he sneers, ‘looking’ back and up to where the old man still likely rests.

“... I,...” She mumbles, “I know DiZ seems really mean- and I, he  _ is _ mean, but I… I understand why he’s so mean. So I don’t really mind.”

“Namine, with all due respect, I think you’re just too nice, you’re too used to getting pushed around.”

“I can’t deny this. But like… Never tell him this, or like, don’t ask him ok?” She leans in close, whispering in his ear in case DiZ had somehow risen to listen to them, ear pressed behind the kitchen door.

An eyebrow raises, but Riku leans down so she can actually reach his ear.

“... So, DiZ is a Nobody, right? I’m not insane?”

… There’s a long pause of thought to that. Riku leans back up, staring vacantly at the wall, and Namine just sits back and watches, sparing a few glances to the steeping tea and the soup casually heating up at her side. “... That absolute bastard. He is, isn’t he.” He speaks so quietly Namine can barely hear him over the stove.

“...I know! I… Honestly, Riku, I don’t think  _ he _ knows- or he’s denying it.”

“... Well wait now- I don’t think Nobody can get sick, can they?”

"... I’m not sure!  _ I’ve  _ never been sick, but I’ve also only been ‘me’ for half a year.” She hums in thought, tapping her chin while she thinks of the other Organization members she interacted with for a whole of two weeks. “I guess I’d have to see the Organization more.”

“Easier said than done,” Riku scoffs, casually plucking the teabag from the mug and plopping it straight onto the counter to deal with later. “I don’t go out of my way to bother them- but I guess I could? I think mostly it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if they get sick, or if DiZ even is a Nobody too.”

“I think it matters a little bit.”

“Is that your excuse to why you’re ‘ok’ with him being mean to you?”

“Mhmmn,” she nods, reaching for the mug to carry upstairs with them, but not before turning off the stove burner and putting on the lid to keep it warm for later. “He’s empty, so he’s… well I guess he’s not  _ really _ sad, but I’m sure being empty makes a man a little cranky.”

“It’s still ‘fake’ cranky, if I’m to believe all the nasty stuff he’s said about Nobodies.”

“Well,” Namine chuffs, “ _ I’m _ also a Nobody, you know. Do I always seem so fake?”

“Since you’ve spent the entire morning being worried about a cruel old man… Maybe it’s more intricate than I know. You started off pretty mean too.”

“But I got better…” She pouts, making an unseen face at him- but she still laughs, knowing they’re mutually teasing each other. 

Heading up the stairs, “So you think if you keep being nice to him, he’ll remember what it was like to be nice?”

“I hope so,” Namine sighs, eyes lidding, but she nearly trips.

“Don’t hold your breath on that one- If that’s true, you’re nice because Kairi is nice. Who knows what DiZ’s Somebody was like.”

“Well, if he’s trying to stop the Organization, it can’t be that bad, right?”

“I mean, it  _ could,” _ Riku mumbles, but they both get silent when they’re in earshot of DiZ’s bedroom door.

Cautiously, Riku opens the door, pulling up the lip of his blindfold to peer into the darkened room. He’s exactly where Namine had left him- laying prone and asleep on his bed. Face still uncovered, and as Riku looks in further than Namine, he’s at least taken off his shirt as well. Pried up from his covers, Riku can see a flash of white scarring across the skin above his heart. “You can stay out here if you want, Namine, I’m not scared of him,” he speaks quietly, but unlike when Namine had called earlier, DiZ’s amber gaze flicks open.

Rasping with each breath, he barks at them, “What are you two  _ doing. _ ”

Riku immediately enter, waving a dismissive hand, “Namine was worried when you didn’t wake up this morning, heard you coughing like a sick old man. Thankfully I came to visit so I could give her a hand with you.”

“I’m fine,” he rumbles, attempting to shift himself out of bed, but doesn’t make it far before he’s coughing again.

“Lay down,” Riku commands, and while DiZ desperately want to object, his body has other ideas and lays him back down for him. He does prop himself up enough he’s sitting up a bit, at least.

Namine finally sees DiZ being settled down, and skitters in behind Riku. “I’m sorry! You sounded really… awful. I thought you were…”

“Like I would die to this,” DiZ scoffs, sneering, but does not look at her with his glaring eyes like he might normally. His revealed pale hair sticks to the sweat of his face, even when he raises a weak hand to push it back- he just looks so. Incredibly pathetic compared to anything she had known him to be for the past half year. It would be very hard to glare her down while simultaneously looking like a sick puppy.

“Well, Namine doesn’t know much about how real people work, y’know. I tried to tell her, but I went and got tea for you anyways,” and since that’s her cue, she shuffles up to offer him the semi-cooled down liquid. “I didn’t even put any sugar in it.”

Barely over his breath, “I think at this point I’d likely drink it anyways.” As he reaches for he offered mug, he  _ strains _ , but eventually warbles out a half-hearted, “Thank you.”

She’s not sure he’s even said something  _ thankful _ to her before, and she’s not sure he’ll ever say it again. Nodding gratefully, “I’m glad you’re maybe not as sick as I thought you were.”

“And why would you care,” he hums, sipping his tea. A pleased noise breaks from his sore throat; it tastes fairly decent, but most importantly soothes the dry coughing. 

“I mean…” She laughs, painfully, quietly, “What would I do without you, huh.”

“Not much what you would like to get done…” His eyes dart up to Riku, “but you would not lay down and die.”

“Well, I hope you won’t either, old man,” Riku scoffs, turning back towards the door. “She was making you some soup, too, do you actually want it?”

He stops and thinks about it a moment, eyes growing distant as he simply sniffs in the steam of his tea. Slowly, however, and to Namine’s tension, a wholly  _ too soft _ gaze falls upon her instead. “I won’t say no to that, I suppose.”

She swallows roughly, nodding furiously before traipsing back in Riku’s steps. 

Once they’re heading back down the stairs, “Stop looking like you’re about to cry!” Riku slaps a hand over her shoulder, jostling her out of her feelings.

"What did I tell you! He can be nice!... Sometimes! Or maybe he’s being manipulative, I don’t knooooow,” she whines, head falling forwards. “Can you blame me for hoping the best in someone?”

“In some cases- yeah, I think you’re wasting your time. And I hope it doesn’t come back to bite you later. But I’ll be here for you if it does, alright?”

“You better,” Namine huffs, arms folding across her chest as she takes a few strides ahead of him.


End file.
